Retha Brannon wakes up early enough to catch the sun rising over the Blue Ridge Mountains—something she has done each day since moving last year to Asheville, North Carolina. And it’s something she plans to do every morning for a long time to come.
Ms. Brannon is an endometrial cancer survivor. But she’s also much more, including an avid supporter of the arts, a collector of antiques and books, a companion to three dogs and five cats, a writer and a storyteller.
Born in Geneva, Alabama, she was the first in her family to be born in a hospital rather than the family home. She attended the local high school and later the University of South Alabama and Louisiana State University. She became an insurance agent, working in that profession for two decades.
In 1983, she met her partner Lemuel Morrison, M.D., a Harvard-educated neonatologist who worked at UAB. They were together for 12 years when Dr. Morrison was diagnosed with lymphoma and given only six months to live. She instead lived for six years—time that Ms. Brannon says she will always cherish. “Lemuel was amazing, kindhearted and brilliant,” says Ms. Brannon, who cared for Dr. Morrison until her death in 2001.
Another Cancer Diagnosis
In 2003, Ms. Brannon was preparing to take her niece Taylor on a grand tour of Europe to celebrate her college graduation when she began experiencing abnormal bleeding and other changes in her body. She went to see her gynecologist in Tuscaloosa, where she received the news that she had endometrial cancer. For treatment, Mrs. Brannon’s physician said he would only recommend one place: the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. “He said, ‘I have referred you to the finest teaching hospital. It’s where I would send my mother or wife,’” she recalls.
For Ms. Brannon, facing treatment was a painful reminder of her partner’s struggle with cancer. Her radiologist in Tuscaloosa, Curtis Tucker, M.D., told her to remain positive. “He said he wanted me to forget everything I knew about cancer, which was difficult since I cared for someone with the disease for six years,” Ms. Brannon says. “But he assured me I had a completely different cancer.”
She decided to take Taylor on the Europe trip. “I didn’t want her to ever say, ‘My Aunt Retha and I almost went to Europe,’” she explains. Though she enjoyed seeing Europe through her niece’s eyes, she worried about the surgery and radiation she would receive upon her return. The day after she came back, she went into surgery with UAB gynecologic oncologist Michael Straughn, M.D.
“Dr. Straughn was absolutely wonderful, as were all of the physicians in that group,” she says. She smiles when she describes how another UAB gynecologic oncologist, Max Austin, M.D., with whom she shares mutual friends, sat by her bedside the entire afternoon of the surgery. “Even though I had just had this major surgery, it was like old-home week!”
A Desire to Live
After recovering from surgery Ms. Brannon underwent six weeks of radiation therapy, coming to UAB five days a week. During that time she began reading stories of Holocaust survivors, and learning about their trials gave her courage to face her own struggles, she says. “When I read what other people suffered through, I realized that I had it good. No one came and broke my door down or took my family and clothes. I had comforts during my illness. How could I complain when other people throughout history suffered so much more?”
In 2005, she was diagnosed with a recurrence in her lungs, and she began chemotherapy under the watch of Dr. Straughn. At times the side effects were grueling. “There were times I was in so much pain, but I knew where I was heading—I was going to stay alive,” she says. “There were too many books I hadn’t read!” She received her last treatment in October 2005.
Today Ms. Brannon is cancer-free. She advises people to pay careful attention to their bodies and report changes that seem odd. “We all must be eternally vigilant of any change in our bodies,” she says.
Ms. Brannon and her partner Stephanie Ellrich bought their home in North Carolina a year after she finished chemotherapy. Today they spend most of their time in the mountains, but they still make it back to Alabama to visit their farm in Sawyerville and Ms. Brannon’s family home in Geneva. “Asheville represents a new direction for me, a new phase in life,” Ms. Brannon says. “The community is filled with the arts, and our back view is nothing but mountains. It’s marvelous.”
These days she is busy working on a list of projects. She is writing her life story and that of her family, building a cabin on the grounds of her Asheville home, and scouring antique shops for one-of-a-kind wares. Now that she has more energy, she hopes to volunteer as a guardian ad litem for children in need. And in May 2007 she attended her niece’s wedding. Her greatest wish is to one day hold her niece’s first child, she says.
Ms. Brannon leads a life guided by a key principle of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. “He said, ‘Those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how,’” Ms. Brannon says. “Even when I’ve struggled with staying alive, I have always had my why. I have a burning desire to live.”
